„Shuji Terayama (1935-1983), one of Japan’s most famous poets and playwrights, first wanted to become a photographer. While still a child he hung around the local photo parlor so often that his mother finally told him that so much picture-taking would make him dwindle away to nothing at all…

Terayama has elsewhere written that it is not the camera’s ability to tell the truth that is interesting, but it is its ability to lie. He can make us truly believe in this claustrophobic, closed, dead world, where we are forced voyeurs. This four-DVD set of almost all of his shorter films (the very first, „Catology,“ has been lost for years) drags us into his disturbing kingdom — a coherent and forceful expression of an imagination, dreamlike but startlingly real…

That the collection is sometimes upsetting is to be expected — it was intended to be. Terayama is not only the sleeping child, he is also the sinister magician and through the magic of film he reigns over his embattled kingdom…

It is embattled because it is a vision of childhood with all the terror and cruelty retained, and because mother was right: If you take too many pictures you dwindle away. This dwindling process is called maturity. When you have entirely evaporated you are an adult.“ (Donald Richie)